There is no way Amtrak can get better moves, if they show up at scheduled times they run on whatever time the schedule is.If they show up late, they get pot luck , No Metro North Dispatcher is going to hold a MN train with twice the passengers for a guest carrier. And specially a Guest Carrier that gets charged very very little.

What is the timeline for the DEIS? (DEIS=Draft Environmental Impact Study) Is Cuomo applying the same pressure as what he is doing for the LIRR third track? That DEIS came out quite quickly. They are supposed to have the Final EIS middle of next year.

DutchRailnut wrote:Pelham bay drawbridge is over a navigable waterway , the coast guard would not allow a fixed bridge.

He didn't say it had to be on the same vertical alignment.

DutchRailnut wrote:MN does not serve Queens

So? MN doesn't serve Midtown West either. But that's not stopping them. So is there more to it?

DutchRailnut wrote:and putting up a station in area would severely hinder the amount of trains that could use the tracks.

Why would putting up a station in the area necessarily "severely hinder" the amount of trains that could use the tracks? Stations are added to existing routes all the time and they figure out how to correctly not "severely hinder" service. Why couldn't they figure it out here too if they wanted to?

To answer questions previously answered "up-thread", there was an idea of putting a station near Sunnyside. The idea was scuttled early on in the process. They're already adding four stations. Even with a "station" track off the main line, trains entering and leaving stations are going to affect capacity. I doubt the viaduct near LGA in Astoria could accommodate a station although it sure would be great, and you'd still have to transfer to a shuttle bus for the airport. Not sure about Woodbridge. I think extending the Astoria line is a better idea, but that was scuttled by, well, Astoria.

The area in Queens is where they really don't have a lot of wiggle room, and the complex nature and number of train movements heading into Sunnyside (to be simplified for ESA to be sure) really argues against adding a station on what could only be two tracks, i.e. no "station siding". The map up-thread shows a third track being added in a good bit of the Bronx, so those four stations really don't impinge on Amtrak's current two NEC tracks.

Someone mentioned connecting to Jamaica station. It's a really nice idea. However, the Bay Ridge branch does not have a connection to the LIRR Main Line; I believe it's at a different grade, and there's not much room to make a connecting track.

Scalziand wrote:The Thruway bridge is a fixed bridge. How high is that one?

That's a fairly new bridge; it replaced a draw bridge, in the 1980's at some point. It's relatively high, which was made easier by the fact that the Westchester side of the bridge is already up on a bluff. I would think it would be a major engineering task to raise the NEC bridge to a sufficient height; it's a busy ROW, and flat terrain requiring long approaches. And it's in wet lands.